Managing Stoke City - Finding silk purse in vital transfer window finale
Having money in the Championship isn't the answer in itself, as anyone who was around Stoke City in 2018 will attest, but having it and spending it wisely surely makes life a lot easier than trying to come up with an answer when deep pockets have been sewn up by Financial Fair Play rules.
Mark Robins has had his nose rubbed in it a little in his first month as Stoke manager. Stoke, with a limited budget last summer, managed to find and land a striker who scored regularly despite huge competition from around the Championship. But then Tom Cannon was recalled by Leicester and sold on to Sheffield United for £10 million.
So Stoke have turned their attention to Ali Al-Hamadi, hoping to repeat the trick, another 22-year-old to be borrowed from the Premier League, taking them up to the summer of 2025 when they hope the profit and sustainability lines are redrawn after months of negotiations.
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Robins was asked this week if he was frustrated by having wealthy owners who were not allowed to give him the cash they would like to invest in the team - leaving him and the recruitment team trying to find a silk purse with a cow's ear - and whether supporters might appreciate the challenge.
He said: “I think, in general, supporters want to come and see the team win. They may not understand or want to understand the nuances around it and that’s probably fair enough. From my perspective, I don’t get paid to get frustrated, I get paid to get results and navigate a way through whatever paths are there for me and us at this moment in time. That’s where I have to focus.
“The focus at the moment is how we can impact this game in the most positive way. That’s all I can do until anything starts to fall in a different way. We can try to affect it in a number of ways and one of those is recruitment. It really is key to get some help and support for the young players and also for the more experienced ones as well because that’s where the levels go up.
“This window, it’s a tricky window, but everyone is doing as much as we possibly can and that’s all you can do. You’re at the mercy of other clubs, you can get people in from places where squads may be settled and want it that way, sometimes you’re getting players that are sort of put to you that haven’t played so much or have been injured and those are really difficult circumstances because you end up bringing in players who aren’t quite ready and you want them to impact your team and you put them in and they get injured. It’s really difficult so you need a little bit of luck along with the hard work that goes into it.”
Stoke would want a winger or two in an ideal world as well as a combative central midfielder and powerhouse centre-back but it remains to be seen just how much serious wheeling and dealing is feasible before deadline day on February 3.
There might be scope to tick off one or two with bargains but Robins will be pragmatic enough to focus on who is coming out of the treatment room, or is building up sharpness, and the impact that Sam Gallagher, Ben Pearson, Bosun Lawal, Ben Gibson and Million Manhoef can make in particular if they can get fit and stay fit.
There may be a chance to let players go who have been on the fringes, like Niall Ennis, who has been attracting attention from League One clubs such as Blackpool. Emre Tezgel would obviously benefit from a Nathan Lowe-style loan which would propel him up the pecking order. He is out of contract in the summer but his status could change very quickly.
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